


falling asleep with a book on your chest

by sobangcha (shapuccinno)



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Gen, Non-English Source, Rivalry, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 15:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7367293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shapuccinno/pseuds/sobangcha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remove Asano Gakushuu from the list, and then Nakamura Rio would be Akabane Karma's number one rival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	falling asleep with a book on your chest

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [falling asleep with a book on your chest](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3372410) by [shapuccinno](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shapuccinno/pseuds/shapuccinno). 



> i was asked to translate my previous work (falling asleep with a book on your chest) to english so here it is!  
> please do correct me if there's any mistakes since english is not my first language :")

It’s been a long time since Rio decided to put out her ambition to pursue numbers.  
  
_Numbers are no use_ , she thinks. After all, it's just numbers. Nothing she could exchange with these numbers, maybe except diploma and guarantees that she would be accepted at a good university; but those things are not guarantee of happiness. Rio has learned to see things behind a pile of books on a desk or outside the cram school windows. Of course, compared to a stuffy cram school classroom which feels like a prison, the fresh air outside is much more fun. She can be stupid and no one will judge her; she is free to run as far as possible without anyone telling her to stop.  
  
So when she suddenly fell to the class E (which means, a total decrease of Kunugigaoka student’s dignity) Rio smiled happily.  
  
In that class she has dumb friends and she can be dumb together with them. And it’s fun. No more putting on a fake persona, or a classroom filled by unhealthy competition. When she’s together with her dumb friends, she thought her ambition toward numbers would be extinguished forever, and then forgotten, in a chest containing unpleasant memories about her school life.  
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
One day a red-haired boy appears at the school, with a disturbing grin full with bloodlust.

  
_He was suspended from school for violent behavior,_ Nagisa explains, and Rio believes it right away, since Nagisa won’t lie, and that grin already proves the level of his emotional control. Karma explodes like fireworks on the New Year’s Eve, and he uses anything to channel his exploding emotions; it would be a lie if Rio said she was not disturbed to see how Karma tries to kill Koro-sensei happily, confidently. He doesn’t care about the rules of the school, nor his grades, but how in Earth he is able to answer a quiz perfectly in the middle of killing attempt?

  
Rio can’t believe it.  
  
There is a spark in her heart that re-emerged when she finds that Karma, who didn’t study at all, getting ranked 13th in the school for his midterm exams grade. Not the 13th in the classroom, but in the _whole school. What the heck?_

  
"He's smart, Nakamura-san." Nagisa explains it to her. "If only he could control his emotions better, he would have been there, in the class 3-A."  
  
Nagisa’s explanation slips away with the wind while Rio is still looking at the notice board in disbelief. Their class’ average grade is worse than previous exam, but how Karma still manages to place himself in the top 20 without any noticeable effort is a miracle itself. Rio places her hands on her hips, staring at the notice board for ten minutes is enough to make she feels like her heart is being drenched by gasoline.

  
Oh, Rio hates to admit it, but the irritation of seeing someone who never cared like Karma gets that kind of good grades, restores the spark of her ambitions. The ambitions that would be gone forever, if only she didn’t meet Akabane Karma.  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
Perhaps she is wrong about Karma who doesn’t care. Well, maybe he really _didn’t_. But for now, she is sure that slowly, Karma is starting to care. Not only for grades, not only for prestige. Karma chases numbers not only for himself, but also for the whole class E.

  
(Rio starts to think that Karma is so adorable. The word ‘adorable’ maybe doesn’t really suit him, but she can’t think of any other words.)  
  
Rio once thought that Karma got his grades with zero effort. She was right, at least in some occasions (such as when he answered a quiz perfectly in the middle of a Koro-sensei killing attempt) but, not in _all_ occasions. Karma does try. Not all grades he gets are effortless. She gets the proof of his efforts in a day when final exams are getting closer and she sees Karma asleep under a tree, at the end of their recess time, with his head resting on tree roots and a book lying on his chest.  
  
She can’t refrain from smiling. She is right about her theory that Karma is adorable.

  
When Koro-sensei asks about Karma’s whereabouts at the start of the class, she doesn’t tell Koro-sensei that Karma is asleep outside. Rio spends the rest of the classes thinking about Karma, who fell asleep with his math book on his chest, and keep the imagery vividly in her memory as a motivation to study harder. Harder than the previous Rio Nakamura, harder than her circle of friends, and maybe harder than Karma. At that time, Rio realizes that her ambition has started to fire again; but with different flame colors. Not to pursue a number; but to try harder, louder, and louder.  
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
   
  
  
  
"If I wasn’t here, you would have been the first in class."  
  
The gap between their exam score is pretty wide. 500 and 461. And there is also Asano Gakushuu between them, with a score just three points lower than Karma’s. Rio snorts.  
  
"With such grade you could move to the class A," Rio says as she shrugs. "But I know you won’t."  
  
"Who wants to replace an opportunity to kill with a prison class like that? No one, right?"  
  
Rio understands. Really understands.  
  
"If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t have a rival." Rio shrugs her shoulders. "I guess being in the second place is fine. I don’t mind.”

  
Yes, being in the second place is cool. Because the second place will keep running, running, and running. The second place has a destination that is always there. The second place has to make more effort to get themselves out from the shadow of the first place.  
  
Karma can see that fire blazes in her eyes, a burning ambition. He grins.  
  
"You know, I won’t lose to you. What’s the meaning of youth if there’s no competition, isn’t it?"  
  
So in another day, when Rio feels like a failure, or when she is demotivated by some other things that happen around her, she will recall the memory of Karma who fell asleep with a book in his chest, in order to remind her to always try harder. She will try harder until someday she will hold Karma’s hand and walk together on the same road, or even turn around to say hello to the red-haired boy.

 


End file.
